A biblical message has been included at block 666.666 of the Bitcoin blockchain.
In fact, it is possible to include text messages within the transactions that are included in the blocks
, as Satoshi Nakamoto himself did with the first block.
The number 666 is commonly known as “the number of the beast“, because in Christian tradition it is a symbol denoting a satanic character, as found in the Bible itself in a passage from the Apocalypse of John in the New Testament in reference to a beast rising from the sea and ravaging the Earth.
It was BTC.com, one of the world’s leading mining pools, currently second only to F2Pool, that mined the 666,666th block.
The transaction in which the biblical message was embedded was made yesterday, Monday, January 18th, 2021, with 0.01 BTC sent to two different addresses, one starting with “1GoD” (God) and the other starting with “1BibLE” (Bible), with a 0.001358 BTC fee.
Since the 0.001358 BTC fee corresponds to more than $50, it probably means that the person who sent that transaction wanted it to be included in the 666.666th block, as it was sent shortly after the 666.665 block was mined.
The text on the block is a verse from the Epistle to the Romans, a New Testament text in Greek written by Paul of Tarsus and addressed to the Christians of Rome.
The message included in the Bitcoin block
It is verse 21 of chapter 12, also known as “Romans 12:21“, and it reads:
“Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good”.
A message was included in the 666,666th #bitcoin blocked that was just mined.
The message was a Bible verse from the book of Romans:
–"Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good" pic.twitter.com/AE5Ve8XpBs— CoinBeast (@coinbeastmedia) January 19, 2021
Chapter 12 of the Epistle to the Romans contains several precepts like this, and specifically in the last verse of the chapter, namely Romans 12:21, Paul of Tarsus calls for being strong in one’s conviction not to be overcome by evil, but to overcome evil with good.
The thing is that the final victory over evil is foreseen in the book of Revelation, and this is perhaps what the miner was referring to when he inserted this verse in block 666.666.
It is difficult to say in this specific case what (or who) is evil, but it is possible that this is a reference to traditional fiat currencies, or central banks and their monetary policies.
In fact, it is very likely that the good in this case is Bitcoin and that the author of the transaction wanted to suggest trumping fiat currencies with Bitcoin.
